A Little Less Conversation
by quicksilvering
Summary: Katherine Pierce's call takes Elijah by surprise, but he can't help meeting her to find out what she wants. And maybe have a long overdue conversation while he's at it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Vampire Diaries **_**or **_**The Originals. **_**If I did there would be A LOT more Katherine/Elijah in it. Takes place before 4x18. **

_A Little Less Conversation _

The spoon in Elijah's tea cup made a faint clinking sound as he methodically stirred the hot liquid inside. It sounded loud to him above the quiet, muted sounds of the two other groups of people that were frequenting the 24-hour diner, the only place open at this time of night in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The air conditioning was on, but the night outside was hot and muggy and oppressive and Elijah could feel his suit clinging to him.

He noticed that his left hand was restlessly tapping on the tabletop and quickly made it stop.

The middle-aged woman who manned the counter during the nightshift came over then with a business-like look about her, as though she would do her job even if it killed her. "Anything else I can get for you, dear?" She looked stern and unapproachable, but as Elijah looked up to politely decline he noticed that her brown eyes were kind. "I'll just fill up your tea cup then," she said, before returning thirty-seconds later with the hot-water kettle. She handed him a new tea packet and then made to leave again, before pausing, looking like she was wrestling with herself. She bit her lip and turned back to him.

"She'll be here," she said, causing Elijah's eyes to fly to her in shock. He had missed the keen, piercing intelligence in her eyes, hidden as it was under layers of kindness and coldness. "And if she doesn't, and she's worth it, go after her. Don't let her run away from you, young man. You're one of the good ones, I can tell."

She reached over, before he even thought to react, patted him in what she probably thought was a comforting manner, on the hand and walked back down the counter to check on one of the other customer-filled tables.

Elijah watched her go, grey-streaked hair, proud, stiff back, wrinkles starting to decorate her features, and he wondered her story. And he wondered what was on his face, or in his eyes, that had led her to deduce he was someone she could relate to.

"Well, she definitely fancies you. Still a little too _young _for you, though, don't you think?" came a mocking, impudent voice behind him. Elijah hadn't heard her come in, distracted as he had been. He turned and Katherine Pierce was standing before him.

Her dark eyes looked amused, but her hands were clenched tightly together and she looked as though she was desperately convincing herself not to run from him.

Elijah knew he was staring. He had had a quick glimpse of her in Klaus' apartment before his brother had stabbed him in the back, and then before that he had seen her in the tomb with the younger Salvatore brother. And before that….it had been five hundred years.

She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Dressed in navy blue and tight, black pants, with tall boots and a leather jacket she looked sexy and dangerous – everything he would have expected from Katherine Pierce. Her long, ringleted hair cascaded down her back and her face was heavily made up, with dark-red lips that were designed to draw the gaze of every male in the vicinity.

But the wiry grace, the barely held in check energy, the imperious tilt to her chin, and the gaze – a mixture of overwhelming fear and desperate hope – were all Katerina's. And he felt it like a shock through his body that he recognized her; five hundred years and innumerable darkness had passed since he had first met her, but looking at her now, Elijah could still see Katerina Petrova looking back at him.

She was growing more and more nervous at his perusal. He waved her to the seat across from him. "You called me and said you wanted to meet," he reminded her. He couldn't take his eyes off her as she sidled over to slide into the booth. "I must admit I was surprised that you would seek me out. And curious. So here I am. What is your business with me?"

He watched her as her face banished all traces of fear, her back straightened, she crossed her legs and she bestowed him with a calculating and sultry look. And she was Katherine Pierce again.

Elijah looked over her shoulder then, hoping his face didn't show the disappointment he felt, and caught the gaze of the waitress. She was watching Katherine with a strange look on her face. She saw him looking at her and she gave him a sad smile before turning back to her work.

Elijah looked back at the woman before him as she said, "I have a proposition for you."

"Oh yes? And what would that be?"

"I've heard that Klaus is trying to get his hands on a Vampire Cure. Something to do with an immortal named Silas. Or whatever."

Elijah nodded. He had heard the same as well. He hadn't talked to either of his remaining siblings in months so he had no idea what either of them would want if for, but his sources had told him that both Niklaus and Rebekah were almost at war with each other attempting to discover its location.

There was a pause and Katherine looked down at the table top. "I also heard, from little Elena Gilbert, what you tried to do for me 500 years ago." She looked up at him now, her dark eyes direct and piercing. That did surprise him.

"You mean you didn't know then?"

Katherine shook her head. "Trevor never told me. Was he supposed to? He merely said that you knew about the ritual and that he would help me run."

"But you didn't trust him."

"No."

"And so you ran from him too."

"If we had stayed together, you and Klaus would have found us much easier. I knew that you would follow me, and not them."

"So you left him and Rose-Marie in order to save them?" Elijah knew he sounded disbelieving.

Katherine gave him a scornful look. "As I said before, I left because I didn't trust him."

"He loved you."

"He thought he did. So many do."

"And you betray them all."

"Better them than me."

"The legacy that is Katherine Pierce." He had no idea how he sounded to her then, but her chin came up and she fixed him with a defiant gaze.

"At least it's better than Klaus' legacy. And by extension, _yours._"

There was silence then.

The waitress came over; doing her rounds again, and asked then both if they wanted anything. Neither of them looked at her or at each other.

"No," Katherine said shortly.

"No, thank you," Elijah said, distantly.

There was a burst of raucous laughter from one of the other tables filled with high-school students. It pierced the bubble of uncomfortable silence that surrounded the waitress, Elijah and Katherine. They all looked up, startled.

The waitress cleared her throat and Katherine glanced at her. Elijah kept his gaze fixed on the woman in front of him. She smelled musky, like French perfume. Her hands were festooned with rings and her earrings were long and expensive looking.

_It was armor, _he thought, not paying any attention to what the middle-aged waitress was saying to Katherine. _Katerina woke up every morning and put on her French perfume and her red lipstick and her tall heels and she became Katherine._

And it wasn't just the accessories. It was the clothing and the hair, the way she walked and the tone of her voice. It was the way she thought and the way she reacted. She was Katherine tonight. She had been Katherine for centuries. He was used to masks. He had his own and he had been dealing with Niklaus' for a millennium. _We all need masks to survive. The longer we live, the more ingrained that mask becomes. _How much worse was it to be immortal, and to be alone; to have no one who could see beyond the mask? No one who knew you before the mask had become necessary. He wondered when Katerina woke up to find that the mask had become her reality.

The waitress had left again and Katherine was coolly assessing him.

"You want to trade the Cure to Niklaus for your freedom," he surmised, back on track. "And you want me to make sure that he lets you live long enough to ensure your trade is successful."

"I figured that after five centuries even you would be tired of chasing me around the globe. Time for a little R&R, don't you think? You've earned it. You were certainly _dedicated _at pursuing me."

Her quick wit and the fact that she thought she was hilarious reminded him of Damon Salvatore, and he smiled a bit at Katherine's absolute gall at coming to him after all this time and then snarking about it. But like Damon Salvatore there was a hint of bitterness underneath, a world-weary cynicism, that mocked their own attempts to try to live up to the standards of a world that forever tried to destroy them.

"You are finally ready for the game to be over then," he murmured and Katherine's head jerked up and the look she fixed on him, shocked and scared and overwhelmed, and so damn hopeful underneath it all, was like a jolt to his entire body. "Why on earth did you assume that I wouldn't just turn you over to Klaus as soon as you walked through that door?" he wondered out loud. She had run from him for half a millennium, was the fact that he had made a half-arsed attempt to save her enough to erase all of that?

He had spent hundreds of years feeling like she had betrayed him. He had forgotten what it was like to be human though, to be young and alone and scared. Meeting Katherine's doppelganger had changed that, had changed him. She was still so very human and those around her were so very human as well. It changed every vampire that came in contact with them. Elijah had even seen his siblings changing; although not fast enough unfortunately. That remembrance of humanity had come rushing back to him so quickly. Elena had read his soul as easily as the young Katerina had.

And he had spent the past year feeling like he had betrayed Katerina, not the other way around, 500 years ago. Just like he eventually betrayed Elena Gilbert.

"I decided to appeal to your logical side," Katherine said, not knowing the turn his thoughts had taken. "And besides, you haven't killed my annoying little doppelganger, Elena. So I figured that you would at least hear me out."

Elijah thought about it for a while, fingers drumming on the tabletop. "I will think about it," he said at last. "Bring me the Cure – knowing your talents I am sure that you can acquire it first. And then we will see where we stand."

He stood up then, preparing to leave. That was all that needed to be said tonight.

"Wait," she said, reaching out but not touching him. She licked her lips and there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. "Why did you do it? Why did you try and save me all those years ago?"

He looked at her in silence. He really had no idea how to answer such a question.

She shook her head, curls waving. "Never mind. I just wanted to say…..thank you. For trying."

Elijah did reach out then, slowly and carefully picking up her hand, bringing it to his lips. "Good night…..Katerina."

He felt her breath catch as he released her hand, turned away and walked back outside to his car, parked under the black, Midwestern sky.

Suddenly she was in front of him, eyes wide and intense, hands reaching towards his face. She stood on tip-toe and placed a kiss on his lips, before backing off only enough that their lips parted. Her nose brushed his, her hair tickled his skin, and her body was flush against his.

He's still as stone.

"Was this the reason?" she whispered, and her breath ghosted his lips, sharp and sweet and potent.

He closes his eyes. He can't breathe.

And he's kissing her then, like a drowning man gasping for air, like a man in the desert who has caught the first sight of water in years.

And she's kissing him back, her fingers in his hair, her body arched into his, her rough breathing filling is ears and his whole being fixed on this one moment, with her.

He pushes her roughly back against the car and she hooks a leg around his pulling him closer. And then he's fumbling with the back-seat door and they're falling backwards onto the wide, plush sheets, his hands cradling her head, his lips moving downwards over her neck, worshiping every part of her he can find, her hands reaching for his shirt.

And it's all too much.

It's everything he's dreamed about for 500 years. Everything he never dared hope for. Everything he was sure he'd lost.

She's there, in his arms, alive and vibrant and strong and so achingly beautiful, and he has no idea that he is crying until Katerina's kissing his cheeks, her arms tight around him, and apparently so filled with emotion that she's laughing and shaking at the same time. "Katerina, _my_ Katerina," he whispers, not sure she hears him. Her nails dig into his back, and he's sure she stops breathing altogether.

And the he stops thinking and it's everything he's ever wanted.

***  
He lies with her afterwards, just holding her in his arms, afraid that at any moment she'll vanish on him. She has for 500 years.

"Jeannie, the waitress, gave me the key to her sister's old house on the edge of town," she says after a while. She says it's still furnished but she never goes there. She says we were talking too much." She laughs a bit and then shifts and looks up at him. "Spend the night with me?" she asks.

And he can't refuse.


	2. Katerina or Katherine

**Disclaimer: Some of Katherine's thoughts in 4x18, with some flashbacks to 2x19. Dedicated to ****LisaLevine****who wanted a two-part and got me thinking on**** how I would write Katherine's voice. Let me know what you think, and thank you for your lovely reviews.**

"Good-bye Katherine," he told her, so stiff and straight that she could practically feel the pain coming from him, before he turned around and walked away from her. He did not look back.

She had said and done everything she could think of to make him stay; she had used passionate appeals, declarations of love, her touch, and even – as a last resort – made an appeal to his honor. All of it had failed. Many people had walked away from her over the centuries, she was used to it. She told herself that she didn't care. She was used to betrayals and declarations of hate, but this – Elijah calling her Katherine and walking away – this hurt.

She had been so sure that she had been merely playing him, using his honor and his soft spot for the Petrova doppelganger. She had believed her own lies to him because believing them was the only way to make _him _believe. But somewhere along the way….

She watched him until she was out of sight. And then she turned around and watched her shadow-self lying unconscious on the ground. She called Damon and told him where to find the girl. And then she thought about going home, picking up a change of clothing at least before grabbing the Cure and skipping town. She thought about calling Elijah and begging him to reconsider. She thought about killing her obnoxious, interfering, self-righteous, whining little doppelganger. But in the end she didn't.

Instead, she went and took a long walk down by the river. She had things to think about.

_ Katerina Petrova had arrived in England in 1492 with nothing but the clothes on her back. She had used the last of the money her mother had hastily handed her upon her eviction from the House of Petrova. Her father was influential, unfortunately, and that meant leaving Bulgaria as well if she didn't want her shame to follow her. _

_ She had headed west, and then kept going as far as she possibly could._

_ She'd hit the English coast and arrived in London on a cold, damp, raw English winter day, hungry and sick, not speaking a word of English and looking like a pauper. She hadn't begged for a thing from anyone; she would pay for what she earned, one way or another._

_ Some days she scrubbed floors, some days she sold her body for a warm place to sleep and enough food to stop her stomach from cramping. Most days she went to sleep hungry. On bad days she slept in poorhouses – filled with the sick and the dying. She was literate and it made learning English much easier. She never complained to anyone about her fate, and she never begged. She gritted her teeth and she kept going. _

_ Eventually she would get out of this. She would get enough money to be well off, to have a cottage somewhere in the English countryside, to be happy. And then, when she was successful, she would return to Bulgaria and demand to know where her father had taken her daughter and she would bring her little girl back with her to England._

_ She would bring her mother and younger sisters with her too._

_ And her father would be left alone._

_ It was spring by the time she stumbled upon one of the new Sick Houses the queen, Elizabeth of York, had ordered built in the city. She was good with her hands and unafraid of either hard work or blood, and the Sisters there gave her board and lodging for her services._

_ She met Trevor there one night as she was doing rounds. She had stumbled upon him in the dark and had thought that he was visiting a relative. She only learned the truth later; that the poor and the sick were easy marks for a vampire. He had looked at her like she was desirable, like so many men did, but when one of the Sister's had called her name he had stared hard at her, shock written on his features._

_ "Your family comes from Russia, Katerina Petrova?" he'd asked, mangling her name and making her wince, internally._

_ She had always been a quick study and her accent was already flawlessly English. She saw no reason to disabuse him of the notion that she was not English, herself. "From Bulgaria," was all she said._

_ He had seemed enraptured by her and over the next several days paid visits to her. She was cautiously optimistic that he might ask her to marry him. Trevor looked like he came from wealth. She would need that to get her daughter back._

_ And then he asked her to attend a party at the country estate of some friends of his; the Lord Niklaus and his brother, the Lord Elijah._

_ He had a stunning, dark violet dress made for her and the nuns helped her dress her hair. "You will be the most beautiful woman there," Trevor had promised her as they travelled the hour long journey to the Mikaelson estate._

_ When they arrived he left her with several other women in order to greet their hosts, and then he had quickly returned to her, bringing the Lord Elijah with him. "My dear," he said, touching her on the arm. She turned around and found herself face to face with Elijah Mikaelson for the first time._

_ He was strikingly handsome – tall, dark, sharp cheekbones – but what she noticed right away was this sense of stillness and control that seemed to emanate from him. He felt powerful, powerful and cold._

_ "Hello," she said, and waited for a reply that didn't seem to be coming._

_She supposed that Katerina would have been confused and overawed when she met Elijah. She remembered his face as he looked at her though with perfect clarity; shock and hope and infatuation, and an instant softening of his eyes as he gazed at her._

_He had blinked, visibly forcing himself back to politeness. "Forgive me, you remind me of someone."_

"_Katerina, may I introduce the Lord Elijah," Trevor said._

_And the Lord Elijah smiled at her and held out his hand for hers. She had curtseyed, "Pleasure, my Lord," she had said, remembering her manners._

"_The pleasure's mine," he'd told her quickly, bringing her hand to his lips for a gentle kiss, and then not letting go of it, unable to take his eyes off her, "Katerina." _

_Her hand tightened around his. He said her name…perfectly._

She remembered those events so clearly, but the girl she had been; her hopes and dreams, how she had _felt _about all of it – that was all gone. She had been so many different people since then. She had made herself hard to survive, she had made herself ruthless, and now most days she woke up and couldn't even remember what it had all been for; what she had been hoping for in the beginning. But she had been surviving for so long – living off her wits and her courage and the legend that she had crafted for herself, that it had become an end all by itself.

And then she had called Elijah and requested a meeting with him and everything changed.

_That first night in the diner, in the middle of godforsaken Oklahoma, he had called her Katerina and then turned to walk away. And she had known that she could let him go like that. She was so close to getting his help with the Cure, she told herself. If she just pushed a little harder he would be hers. The only man who had ever been immune to her charms was Klaus, and even he felt something for her – even if that something was an overwhelming hatred._

_ She runs after him and catches him just outside the diner. He looks at her blankly, face as still as stone, but his eyes burn and so she swallows hard, stands on her tip-toes and kisses him._

_ And his lips taste like….._

_ And she realizes that she's wanted to do this for…_

_ She backs away a tad, but can't bring herself to pull away completely. Her eyes are closed and her arms are around his neck, lips barely an inch apart. She's trembling, she realizes, and her heart's pounding with fear at being this close to him, at touching him. Fear and something else._

_ 'Fear and loathing,' she tells herself. 'This is just a job; a means to an end. He's your enemy. He's been chasing you for 500 years. It doesn't matter how he says your name. He'll always choose his brother over you.'_

_ 'But he didn't, once,' comes the niggling little voice in the back of her head._

_ "Was this the reason?" she whispers against his lips. And it feels like she can't breathe._

_ And he grabs her then, pulling her hard against him, hands clutching her so tightly that she's sure she'll have bruises, vampire though she is. He pushes her back against the car and he's kissing her like he's dreamed of this for five hundred years._

_ There's a feeling in the pit of her stomach like she's jumped off a cliff, and afterwards she tells herself that his tears didn't mean anything and that she was only shaking from nerves, but as she held him in her arms she felt the strangest feeling of tenderness towards him, as though she wanted to protect him._

_ The next morning she awoke to find herself draped across the naked chest of Elijah Mikaelson and she froze like a frightened rabbit._

_ He was warm and well-defined, she noticed, and then felt the urge to kick herself in the ass for contemplating that at a time like this._

_ She wanted to flee, and she was stealthily off of him and half-way out the door when he rolled over in his sleep, a frown crossing his features, and mumbled, "Katerina."_

_ And she couldn't leave after that._

_ Instead she pulled on his discarded dress-shirt and curled herself in the armchair by the window of the waitress Jeannie's sister's old house and studied him by the pale light of early morning._

_ She had thought it in 1492 and she still thought it now; he was absolutely gorgeous. Klaus had a sexual magnetism, but Elijah was old world charm all the way._

_ 'I've landed myself a hottie,' she thought to herself, and smirked._

_ He stirred soon after, restlessly shifting after she had left him. In the gloom she watched his eyes open and blink the sleep away. "Katerina?" he called softly, and when she didn't answer he didn't look around for her, but closed his eyes, weary and yet somehow resigned, as though he had expected her to be gone. Or to have never been there._

_ "Morning, bad boy," she chirped gaily before launching herself onto the bed next to him. His eyes flew open in surprise before, with vampire speed, he rolled over on top of her and pinned her to the bed. His dark eyes were amused and he looked happy to her._

_ He raised an eyebrow at her. "Big boy?"_

_ She smiled shamelessly up at him. "Well, if the shoe fits. Or in this case something other than a shoe…" she trailed off and winked at him._

_There was a grin playing at the corners of his lips as he said, "You think you're cute don't you?"_

_She arched up into him, effectively derailing his train thought. "I know I am," she informed him. And from the way he bent down and kissed her, she would have to say that he agreed._

_Afterwards he held her in his arms and absently combed a hand through her curls. They were silent but she wasn't discomforted by this. She had noticed even when she was human that Elijah had an unusual capacity for stillness and silence. Sometimes she had liked to tease him out of it, but often she had found it restful. She could just _be _with him._

_Slightly startled at this remembrance of her human past she blinked furiously to drive the thoughts away and changed the subject. "Spend the day with me?" she asked him, instead._

_His hand stilled. _

"_What do you do during your days?" he asked._

_Katerina thought about lying to him, but after a moment she said – like someone admitting to having an embarrassing venereal disease – "I really like knitting in the morning."_

_And Elijah's arms tightened around her even as he laughed. "Well that's good then, because I like doing the crossword in the morning," he confided to her._

_So that's what they did._

He still stared at her the way she had seen Damon stare at Elena Gilbert; like she was a miracle, like he couldn't breathe when he looked at her. Five hundred years later. That had to mean something, didn't it? He knew exactly what she was, who she was, and he still stared at her like that.

The way he said her name made her weak at the knees.

When she was with him, she found herself wanting to be Katerina again, wanting to _remember _how to be Katerina again. But she wanted him to look at _Katherine _like he had looked at Katerina too. Stefan Salvatore had seen her vampire side and hated her for it. Damon Salvatore had adored her vampire side but had never challenged her to be more than that. He had followed her blindly and she knew that wasn't what she wanted, that wasn't what she needed, and that wasn't what _he _needed.

But Elijah…she needed him to want every part of her. She _wanted _him to want every part of her.

By the time she had finished walking and thinking it was dark out and she turned back towards the small Pennsylvania town she had been living in the past few months and went to retrieve the Cure.

As she held the cherry-colored vial in her hand she knew what she had to do.

"Because I meant what I said, about my feelings for you. And I'd like to think that you feel something for me too," she told him, as she placed the Cure in his hands. She was serious about this, more serious than she had been about anything for a long time. She needed to believe that he felt something for the Katerina she was today, and not just the human girl she had been half a millennium ago.

"I need you to trust me. I _want _you to trust me." He looked down at her hands, holding his around the Cure. Her hands weren't shaking, her voice was sure. She was giving him the best chance she had ever had at her freedom, and she knew she had to give it without any conditions if she had any chance at keeping him from walking away from her. "Just like I'm trusting you," she told him and his head jerked back up to stare at her. She stepped back from him. "You don't owe me anything. I'm gonna let you decide where we go from here."

She gazed at him for a moment, trying to gauge what affect her words had had, trying to spend one more moment in his presence if this was to be the moment he walked away from her for good. She had said everything that she could, and she was hoping that her actions told him more than any words of hers would be able to.

And then she stepped around him, and away from him, and she didn't look back. Her heart was pounding and she felt like she was going to be sick.

But she felt him turn and watch her as she left.


End file.
